The world will be a far more accepting and tolerant place

26 June 2017

By the age of 51, I imagine that the world will be very different to the way it is now; not only in terms of technological progression but also in relation to the way in which society functions. I believe that the world will be a far more accepting and tolerant place with difference and individuality at its core.

I think that disparity between males and females will have decreased, meaning that gender becomes a far less relevant factor to people. I imagine that more women than ever will be in the workforce and that the number of young girls looking at jobs, particularly leadership positions, will be at its peak. I expect that the world will be far more open-minded regarding issues surrounding sexuality and gender and that there will be even more countries involved in encouraging individuals to express their true selves without risking rejection or penalty.

Technology will be more advanced than ever; I expect that there will be forms of media that even we today would consider impossible and that the number of people using these technologies will be greater than ever. I imagine that young children will be experiencing their childhoods completely differently to how we experienced ours and that most their lives will be lived through computer-mediated means. Older people will be far more aware of these advancements too, so it will all simply become a part of everyone’s day-to-day lives. In regards to my own future, it is a little less easy to imagine. I would like to hope that I am in a well-paid job, married, with all the children I am expected to have; I imagine myself in a job that primarily involves helping people, be it a lawyer, activist, politician etc. - that’s the only part I confidently expect.

The world will be far more knowledgeable and advanced than it is now, which I imagine will make living within it so different from what we all currently experience. We’ll have greater medical awareness, meaning that this will be a world of fewer illnesses and diseases, thus reducing the number of deaths. Developing countries will have caught up with developed countries in relation to this kind of knowledge meaning fewer casualties and deaths in such places. This would naturally mean the world will be far more populated, which could be detrimental to standards of living in certain locations. Whilst I imagine that resources will be more readily available to a vast number of people, I also believe that the number of people in poverty will probably increase as the gap between the richest 1% and the rest of the world only seems to be getting greater and greater; I would suggest that this is probably going to be worse by 2050.

There will be even greater emphasis upon issues to do with the environment and I imagine that campaigns will have high numbers of followers, far higher than there are now. Essentially, I imagine the world as a far more aware and pro-active place to live in.

Neve Rawlinson, studying BA Sociology

I expect that there will be forms of media that even we today would consider impossible and that the number of people using these technologies will be greater than ever